Le trouble dissociatif de l’identité : les mythes à l’épreuve des recherches scientifiques

A Critical Analysis of Myths About Dissociative Identity Disorder

“…According to Piedfort-Marin et al (2021), proponents of the SCM identified the release of a novel (and its movie adaptation), Sybil, as the source of the outbreak of DID diagnoses and that DID would only be a fad. We agree with Piedfort-Marin et al ( 2021) that, contrary to Paris (2012) it does not appear to be the case that DID only manifested in the 1980-1990 period before disappearing.…”

“…In support of the claim that the media does not affect the genesis of DID, Piedfort-Marin et al (2021) referred to Dell's study (2006) showing that of all the symptoms of DID, 83-95% of people diagnosed with DID exhibited 15 symptoms (out of 23) that were "unknown to the media, to the general public, but also to the majority of health care professionals" (p. 379) because they would be subjective and unobservable. Such a finding, according to Dell (2006) and Piedfort-Marin et al (2021) would contradict the SCM. However, the authors did not disclose several critical limitations of this study.…”

“…The intriguing question of the coexistence of several distinct identities resident in one individual has been dramatized in many successful movies, such as Fight Club or, more recently, Split. DID is characterized in the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 291) "by the presence of two or more distinct personality states or an experience of possession and recurrent episodes of amnesia" (see Piedfort-Marin et al, 2021, for a more exhaustive presentation of this disorder). As Piedfort-Marin et al (2021) pointed out, DID is also the subject of many misconceptions about the occurrence of its symptoms and its etiology.…”

“…DID is characterized in the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 291) "by the presence of two or more distinct personality states or an experience of possession and recurrent episodes of amnesia" (see Piedfort-Marin et al, 2021, for a more exhaustive presentation of this disorder). As Piedfort-Marin et al (2021) pointed out, DID is also the subject of many misconceptions about the occurrence of its symptoms and its etiology. In their literature review, Piedfort-Marin and colleagues (2021) addressed five myths they believe are often encountered when discussing DID: (i) DID is schizophrenia; (ii) DID does not exist; (iii) DID develops in response to the influence of the media and/or therapists in suggestible people who are fantasy prone; (iv) The etiology of DID is iatrogenic and not posttraumatic; and (v) Amnesia for the terrifying traumatic stories that DID people report in therapy is not likely, and such stories have been invented.…”

“…The TM asserts a direct causal link between trauma and the development of DID (e.g., Brand et al, 2018;Dalenberg et al, 2013), whereas the SCM is an open model that considers the potential influence and interaction among social and cognitive variables (e.g., fantasy proneness; cognitive failure; suggestibility; peer, therapist or media influence; e.g., Giesbrecht et al, 2008;Lynn et al, 2014) as antecedents of dissociative experiences and symptoms. Piedfort-Marin et al (2021) mainly rejected the tenets of the SCM and were more in favor of the TM. Specifically, they 5 concluded the following: DID is distinct from schizophrenia; it develops independent of influence of therapists, media, or more generally sociocognitive variables; the origin of DID is traumatic in nature; and people with DID do not exhibit proneness to fantasy or confabulation.…”